Bill Moyers is televising an interview with Reverend Jeremiah Wright on tonight's Bill Moyers' Journal on PBS.
I usually watch the Journal, and imagine I am one of about three who do so. It isn't a highly viewed program, and it is not viewed at all by people who are not progressives.
It is likely to have a much larger audience tonight, however, as the program released some clips from the pre-taped show that has had the cable show pundits' panties in a twist. Everyone on those shows is saying what a disaster this is for Obama, to bring up this controversy again, and they are using the clips to further criticize Obama.
In one, for instance, Wright responds to Moyers' question about how he felt when Obama distanced himself from him. "He does what he does and I do what I do," Wright said, adding that he (Wright) was a pastor, and Obama a politican. There appeared to be no negative connotation to the quote, but once again, it was taken out of context. To people like Joe Scarborough, though, who transformed Wright's words into "Obama is just a TYPICAL politican," Wright was "throwing him under the bus."
I admit I don't know what Moyers is doing here. If indeed this is an interview that will hurt Obama (and we haven't yet seen the whole interview so we don't know that) why is he doing it? Is he a shill for Hillary?
We know that before he became a journalist, Moyers was a political operative in the Johnson White House, and largely responsible for the little girl with the daisy ad. So he can be one tough strategist. This could be a deliberate attempt to resurrect the Wright controversy to hurt Obama and help Clinton.
We also know, however, that after he left the Johnson White House, and especially recently, Moyers has been a highly progressive journalist and television personality who has promoted the causes and ideas most akin to those of Obama. Is it possible that the clips he released are the most controversial, meant to get attention from the nitwit pundits on cable news? Is it possible that the interview, in its entirely, is far more favorable to Obama, and that Moyers has outsmarted the pro-Hillary, pro-McCain pundits by releasing some very misleading clips which will get Obama's critics to watch?
Or is Moyers, an ordained minister, not being political, but rather simply charitable to a fellow minister, giving him a chance at redemption?
Or finally, has Moyers now morphed into a publicity seeking television star, and this is only about ratings?
We'll see tonight, as I and a lot of new viewers will tune in.
